


Make Me

by alocalband



Series: TW Tumblr Ficlets [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Consent Issues, First Kiss, M/M, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Post-Season/Series 03, Spells & Enchantments, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 13:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9659738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alocalband/pseuds/alocalband
Summary: The curse is as unexpected as it is unexpectedly cruel.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted [over here on my Tumblr.](http://alocalband.tumblr.com/post/146237426125/sterek-44-from-this-prompt-list-post-season)

The curse is as unexpected as it is unexpectedly cruel.

“Can it be undone?” Stiles asks Deaton desperately, the moment the dust settles and the bad guys are defeated.

“No. But it can be broken.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It can’t be reversed. What’s done is done. But every lock has a key. The trick, of course, is identifying what very specific key will work in this very specific lock.”

So basically he’s fucked.

Everyone around him seems to assume that the spell backfired when the darach cast it, that it ended up reversed. But Stiles is pretty sure that the bastard did exactly what he set out to do. He gave Stiles the one power that some dark, secret part of him always wanted, but that the rest of him always knew would ruin him if he possessed it.

From the moment the curse hits him, and forever afterwards, if Stiles tells someone what to do, they _have_ to do it.

For someone who had their body and free will taken away from them by a demon fox for the better part of last year, it’s a horrifying thought that he could so casually do the same to someone else.

He now lives in constant fear of making the wrong joke or sarcastic observation that will end up having real, physical consequences. The most innocent of comments feels like a potential weapon in his mouth, and most of his comments have never been all that innocent.

He stops talking as much.

Most people don’t notice. Stiles was already a lot quieter after the nogistune, so it’s not a huge change. He’s been getting better since then–the nightmares are fewer, the insomnia less frequent–but any progress he made in the active communication department gets thrown out the window now.

Derek and Lydia both go to great pains to all out avoid him, and he really doesn’t blame them.

Kira tolerates his company as much as she ever did, which is to say mostly for Scott’s sake. But she’s also currently one of the few names on the ever-dwindling list of his acquaintances who _haven’t_ ever been possessed or mind-whammied before.

Scott’s the only one who doesn’t treat him any differently, though Stiles suspects that’s because Scott hasn’t quite grasped the severity of the situation yet. He even asks Stiles to come down to the vet after school one day and test whether or not this new ‘ability’ works on animals, or if it’s exclusive to people.

Stiles’ stomach rolls when he tells the frightened Border Collie with the cone around its neck to “sit” and it does. He very suddenly doesn’t want to know if this new power worked or if the dog is just that well trained. He tosses a few feeble excuses at Scott and gets the hell out of there as fast as his shaking limbs and dying Jeep will take him.

The knock on his bedroom door a couple of hours later doesn’t surprise him, since both Scott and his Dad have gotten pretty good at recognizing when Stiles has flipped the brooding switch to on, even if they’re not always great at figuring out the why’s.

What _does_ come as a surprise is who actually enters the room when he gives the go ahead. 

“Derek?” Stiles frowns and straightens up in his desk chair. “What are you doing here?”

Derek shuts the door behind him and takes a few steps into the middle of the shadowed room, the drawn curtains making it seem like a later hour than it is. “I ran into your father this morning. We spoke about the recent… _situation. A_ nd he pointed out that I may have overreacted.”

“What, by avoiding me? Nah, man, I think that was probably a smart call.” Stiles stands up so that it doesn’t feel so much like Derek is looming over him. They’re about the same height now, but it often doesn’t feel that way.

“He also said that you’ve gotten worse since it happened.”

Stiles shuffles his feet and grabs the back of his neck. He shrugs a shoulder halfheartedly. “I’m alright.”

“Convincing.”

“I’m dealing with it, okay?”

Derek nods idly, like he doesn’t believe Stiles but knows arguing about it won’t get him anywhere. His fingers trail pseudo-casually across a stack of books on Stiles’ desk. “How are the nightmares?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Dude, are we really doing this right now? Because I sincerely doubt an awkward heart-to-heart is actually going to fix anything.”

“We will, though,” Derek meets his gaze evenly. “We will fix this.”

The certainty in his voice is too much. Stiles has to look away. He crosses his arms over his chest protectively, and hunches his shoulders. “I’m not really a fan of false hope, alright? Not anymore. I think my strategy of going full on mute hermit is a little more realistic.”

And now it’s Derek’s turn to roll his eyes. “Well if you’re going to be that dramatic about it, I guess I’ll just leave you to it then.”

He turns to go, and Stiles steps forward, reaching out automatically with a quiet, “Wait, no, Derek, stay.”

Derek stops walking.

Stiles sucks in a sharp breath. No. Oh shit, no.

“I mean. Don’t stay. Or Stay. You can choose. Oh god, I don’t know how to take it back without making you do something else.”

Stiles watches Derek take a slow, deep breath. His shoulders are as tense as Stiles has ever seen them, coiled tight as if straining against invisible bindings. “Stiles,” he says, monotone and careful. “I need you to tell me to leave this house. I give you permission to make me do that. And then I need you to stay away from me for a little while.”

Stiles nods fervently, tears stinging his eyes. “Yeah. Of course. Yes. Okay. Derek, um. Leave this house.”

Derek leaves.

Stiles gets into bed, and doesn’t get out of it for two days.

It’s Scott who finally coaxes him into showering and eating something. Stiles doesn’t really taste the pb&j that his best friend quickly put together and then forced into his hands, but he scarfs down the whole thing regardless at Scott’s anxious expression.

They sit together on Stiles’ rumpled sheets, not saying much. Once the sandwich is gone, and Stiles has chugged a Gatorade, Scott sighs. He puts a hand on Stiles’ knee and squeezes. “Do you want to play video games and pretend that everything is okay? Or do you want to talk about it?”

“You’re actually giving me a choice?”

“Well, I’m starting to get the impression that ‘choice’ is kind of a big thing for you right now.”

Stiles swallows. “I accidentally told Derek what to do. Nothing, like, gross. But, I mean, come on. I could tell the guy to stand on one foot and he’d probably need an extra month of therapy to get over it.”

“Not that I’m an expert on Derek Hale’s emotional stability, but I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit.”

“Maybe. But he was pretty pissed.”

“He just needs time to adjust. Same as you. When he gets back, I bet everything will be–“

“ _Gets back?_ ” Stiles interrupts sharply. “He’s leaving?”

“Oh. Um, yeah. Sorry. He asked me to look after the loft for awhile.”

“Did he… did he say for how long?”

Scott tries to offer an encouraging smile, but mostly all Stiles can see is the pity in his eyes. “Not really, no.”

Well that settles that then. Stiles jumps up and starts hunting around for his shoes. “Sorry, man, but I gotta go. Thanks for the intervention, as always.”

“Stiles, it’s not your fault if he–”

But Stiles is already out the door and tripping down the stairs.

He did this. He’s sure of it. He’s responsible for Derek suddenly wanting to get the hell out of Dodge _yet again_. And maybe it would be for the best–who is he kidding, anywhere is fucking better than Beacon Hills–but he can’t stand the idea that _he’s_ the reason for it. He can’t be the reason Derek leaves. He can’t bear that weight along with everything else already on him, _he can’t._

Derek’s soccer mom car is parked in its usual spot outside the building, so Stiles takes the old elevator up to the loft and uses the key he got through not entirely legal means to burst in on the guy.

Derek rises from the couch, looking entirely unsurprised and entirely unimpressed. It’s unfair how attractive he manages to make that expression look. Though his obscenely tight jeans and maroon V-neck help. As does his… everything.

Stiles pushes the observation away, deep into the vault at the back of his mind where he’s gotten very good at automatically putting just about every flattering Derek observation over the last couple years. And he steels himself for a fight.

A fight that he’s going to have to be hyper-vigilant through, or risk saying something not so easily fixed as the last time he didn’t watch himself.

“You’re leaving?” he asks, his tone already heated. “ _Again?_ ”

Derek folds his arms across his broad chest and returns Stiles’ fire with a cold, steely glare. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“None of your business, Stiles. Why are you here?”

“Because it _is_ my business! If it’s my fault, then it’s my business. You keep taking off at the drop of a hat, and if that’s what you want then fine, I get it, this place is hell on earth. But I need to know that it _isn’t because of me_.”

“…I can’t give you the answer you want.”

Stiles’ hands turn into fists at his sides and he bites down hard on his bottom lip to keep from saying something they’ll both regret. His words are a field of landmines, when they used to be his most clever defense.

Pale skin, fragile bone, and sarcasm. Only now the sarcasm is just as much a weakness as the other two descriptors. More so even.

“Please–” he starts and stops, any plea or request he makes right now feeling too much like a desperate command to be able to communicate safely. “I don’t know how to say what I want to say, without… But if you go…”

Derek raises an eyebrow, almost a sneer. “Oh, so, what, you want me to _stay_?”

“Yes!” Stiles throws his hands in the air in exasperation at the whole situation. At his own inability to navigate it more than anything.

“Fine.” Derek takes a step forward. “ _Make me_.”

Stiles recoils as though slapped. He stumbles back a couple of steps, cowering in on himself, the fight in him gone in a single instant. “I have to– I should go. I should… I’m sorry.”

He trips over his own feet back the way he came, only to be caught at the last second by Derek’s hand on his arm.

“Stiles,” his voice is the softest Stiles has ever heard it. “It’s okay. Tell me you want me to stay.”

Stiles forces himself to breathe. To not look at Derek. “ _No_. Jesus Christ, Derek, I won’t _make_ you– Fuck. Why are you doing this?”

“Because what if you _weren’t_ forcing me?”

This startles Stiles into finally meeting his eyes again. Derek doesn’t appear angry, or like he’s baiting. He looks sincere and a little sad. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

Derek tugs on his arm until Stiles hesitantly follows him back to the couch in the middle of the room. “Breaking the curse, what do you think it involves?”

“Deaton said something about a key?”

“Okay. So what does the lock look like? Let’s start from there.”

Stiles grits his teeth. “It looks like me taking away my friends’ free will whenever I open my fucking mouth.”

“But the curse was directed at _you_ , Stiles. What was that asshole trying to do to _you_ with it?”

“I don’t know, Derek, drive me to an early grave?”

“Well, let’s think about it. What are the consequences for you here? Obviously you can never ask for help ever again. Not that you were very good at doing that before. But now you’d never know if someone was doing it because they _wanted_ to or because you made them. You’d never know if they actually cared.”

Stiles flinches.

Derek continues unabated. “You’d never be able to trust that your friends were really your friends ever again. Because, who knows, maybe just saying ‘hey Scott, you’ll always be my brother’ means now he’s trapped in that for life, right? Even worse if you ever wanted to be with anyone romantically.”

Stiles shakes his head. “Stop,” he whispers, at the edge of tears.

“Everyone around you only there because you forced them to be. Everybody only listening to you because you told them they needed to, not because they recognize that there’s any merit in what you’re saying. Any merit in _you_.”

“Derek, _stop_.”

“ _No_.”

Stiles blinks. “Wait, did you just… How did you…”

Derek grins. It’s practically blinding. “It occurred to me that maybe the key looks like the opposite of all that. Maybe it looks like you _wanting_ to make me stay, but trusting that I’ll do it all on my own. Stiles, the target of the curse wasn’t your friends, it was your ability to trust them.”

Stiles feels like he can’t breath.

“So.” Derek places a hand over Stiles’ own, still clenched on his thigh. “Do you trust me, Stiles?”

A small, hysterical laugh escapes him on a breath. “I… Yes.”

“Do you trust that I wouldn’t be here right now, that I wouldn’t have come back for you every single time I thought you might be in trouble, that I wouldn’t have let you get closer to me than anyone else since my sister, that I wouldn’t have stayed in this room here knowing you could bend me to your will with nothing more than an innocent joke, _if I didn’t wholly and completely want to of my own volition?_ ”

Stiles’ heart beats a little faster. He can barely believe… “ _Yes._ ”

“Stiles,” Derek says. “Tell me to leave.”

Stiles swallows. “Leave.”

Derek smirks a little. “No.”

Some wild combination of relief and joy and incredulousness floods through Stiles so quickly at that, that it propels him forward into Derek’s arms, and he hugs the man for all he’s worth.

“I told you we’d fix it,” Derek says into his hair.

“Just, God, just shut up right now, okay? Because I am _not_ going to cry in front of you again and you are making that really difficult.”

Derek laughs a little. “You’re welcome.”

“Derek… _Fuck_.” He pulls back. “ _Thank you_.”

“I honestly wasn’t sure it would work. I didn’t know if you really… I mean,” Derek clears his throat, and looks momentarily awkward. “That’s an awful lot of trust to place in somebody that you wouldn’t even call a friend. I didn’t know if you actually cared about how much I– or if you even realized that I…”

Stiles moves forward again, and asks quietly, “That you what, Derek?”

“That I trust you just as much.”

“…I don’t deserve that.”

“You do. You earned it. A thousand times over.”

“Derek, I didn’t. I’m not even– I’m _broken_. And even before I was this new kind of broken I was just a different flavor of fucked up. I’m not worth your trust.”

“And I’m not worth yours. _But I’m trying_. I hope that’s enough.”

The wetness in Stiles’ eyes spills over into actual tears. “God damn it, now I’m crying. The next time one of us gets cursed, I propose a fucking moratorium on emotional revelations. There’s only so much I can take in a twenty-four hour period.”

Derek moves forward to meet him. The distance closes as if it was always supposed to do just that. As if it was only waiting there for one of them to do so. “I’ll keep that in mind. The next time.”

It’s unclear who initiates the kiss, perhaps they both do. It’s lingering and soft and feels more like a declaration of intent than anything else so far.

“Derek?” Stiles whispers, their temples pressed together, noses smashed into cheeks, his hands on Derek’s hips. “ _Tell me to stay_.”

Derek smiles, his own hands cradling Stiles’ face as if it were precious. “Tell me you _want_ to,” he says on a sigh. “And I promise to trust that you mean it.”


End file.
